Making Experience Matter

EuroMold is the World Fair for Moldmaking and Tooling, Design and Application Development. Their mission statement for content delivery demonstrates how many stages of the production process the event covers; “From Design to Prototyping to Series Production”. As well as presenting products, services, and the latest technologies, EuroMold also offers insight into future trends, networking, cooperation and business opportunities. It is estimated that over 1,500 exhibitors from 45 countries and 60,000 trade visitors attended the 2012 show.

One of the highlights from our visit was the launch of the Mcor Iris 3D printer by Mcor Technologies. The Mcor Iris is reported to be the lowest cost, highest quality, most eco-friendly and TRUE colour 3D printer on the market - at the time of our attendance. On a 3D tip, we were also delighted to catch a glimpse of the actual Aston Martin DB5 from the latest James Bond film 'Skyfall' courtesy of Voxeljet. You can read more about the process the film makers used to create replicas for 'Skyfall' on our previous ExpoTalk post 'Modeling The Future'.

From early examples of 3D printing in the 1980s, when the equipment was large, expensive and limited in what they could produce, to the present day where most creative institutions own and use the technology on a frequent basis - 3D printing is one of the fastest growing innovative technologies. At Expology we are looking forward to join this technological wave with the arrival of a new 3D printer at our Oslo HQ. The 'MakerBot Replicator 2' is a compact 3D printer that offers the possibility of making high quality 3D models, prototypes and custom designed parts for exhibits at a low cost.

For an inspiring and recent example of 3D printing in action, look no further than the latest James Bond movie 'Skyfall'. When the film makers came to the decision that they were going to completely destroy a classic 1960s era Aston Martin DB5 as part of the film, they set out to find something more lifelike than computer generated animations. The movie studio contracted the services of German-based 3D printing company Voxeljet to make scaled replicas of the vintage automobile. The company crafted three 1:3 scale models of the car using the VX4000 printer in the ironic knowledge that they were made to be blown to pieces during filming!